What the newspapers say: September 5, 2008

No news is bad news in the newspapers on Friday. Same old stories about adrenaline junkies that cross the country at high speed, plus an Apocalypse scenario about the future Bulgarian nuclear plant, ending with a bitter ascertained fact – Bucharest neglects its tourists. Not much for a summer-end, but enough since many prepare for one of the hottest autumn week-ends in the past years.

„9 billion euros on a Richter scale” is the main slogan of the environmentally-concerned organizations that fight the latest Bulgarian project, a nuclear plant in the city of Belene. Romania Libera notes that the plant, 100 kilometers away from Bucharest, is bordered by three major seismic areas. In fact, two energy plants in the immediate neighborhood of Belene were totally torn down by the latest major earthquake in the area, in 1977. Although the newspaper conceives that the risk is completely dependent on the construction technology to be used, there are no reminding of any kind regarding the nuclear plant in Cernavoda, Romania, not as far from Bucharest and the seismic region of Vrancea, either.

In politics, the most active field of the Romanians’ social life, presidential counselor Catalin Avramescu makes a series of statements that send the president’s supporting party straight to the recycle bin of all history. Avramescu withdrawn from the race for the Senate a couple of days ago, when the Democrat – Liberals made an not-so-witty deal with the far-right Greater Romania Party (PRM), exchanging some seats in the Parliament. In an interview for Evenimentul Zilei, Avramescu admits that Democrat-Liberals have their own „oligarchs” (a statute blamed by Romania president Traian Basescu, former president of the Democrat-Liberal party), states that the presence of PRM in politics is „disqualifying” and that not even a full majority in the Parliament would not justify the recently proved alliance.

Also in Evenimentul Zilei, the question of the access to information in Bucharest, for both citizens and tourists, becomes a new reason to blame the local administration. Only one information point is available at the time, in the Henri Coanda airport (some 25 kilometers far from the Bucharest downtown), despite the fact that a citizens’ information points program is approved since 2006.

The good / bad / grey news of the day comes from Gandul: the highway towards the Black Sea became a racing circuit. The fastest car found by the highway patrolling Police was a BMW series 7 which ran at 257 kilometers per hour, close to the „silver medal”, an Aston Martin with 253 kilometers per hour. Both were quite slow, in fact, considering that a motorcycle got to 300 kilometers per hour and the biker was impossible to apprehend as long as he had gas in his tank.

The problem is that railroad transportation is decreasingly important and a lesser option. Even more in case the new taxation draft is approved, in which case the train tickets will be a tiny bit more expensive than airplane tickets for interior destinations. If the National Railroad Company gets its way, the tickets’ price will triple soon, Gandul reads.

One way or another, the seaside seems to be the only destination this weekend, since Romania expects over 34 degrees Centigrade this weekend.